One Room Challenge Week 4: Moving Upstairs to the Guest Room

Temps in the low 30s are coming to Chicago very soon. So I’ve been busting my butt to finish the final things with our exterior painting job before it gets too cold.

It rained again. Our basement flooded again. And again, the flooding lasted for days. (See the result of flooding during Week 3.)

A few bits of good news:

My husband got back from an overseas work trip, so I wasn’t dealing alone

We set up a pump over the drain pipe that’s pushing water into the basement; that cut the flow of water into the basement and water is now pumped down a hill through a garden hose instead

We found a floor crack on the opposite side of the basement where more water is coming in; we were really confused about the source of that water before finding the crack

We found a water remediation company that will take care of everything we need — walls, wood trim, everything in the basement will be torn out and intensive cleaning needed

The not-so-great news:

We still await a visit from our preferred basement waterproofing contractor; it might be a few more weeks and more rain is forecast

We suspect catastrophic failure of drain tiles around the foundation and/or a collapsed pipe somewhere underground but we have no idea where it is

Gonna cost some dollars to fix all this stuff

I shared pictures in Week 1 and Week 2 of the basement room I originally planned to turn into a creative studio. Well here it is now:

I’ve said that I like the look of old mottled walls, but not when the look is made of wallpaper glue and mold!

All the wallpaper came off the walls like frosting sliding off a cake on a really hot day. It was SO humid in the basement. That wallpaper had been extremely bonded to the wallboard, but I practically pulled it off with my pinky finger. It’s like the humidity steamed the wallpaper off. Which is a good thing, because it was thick vinyl and the walls cannot breathe. We had to expose the walls to see what was happening to them. I’m using Simple Green d Pro 5 Disinfectant (affiliate link) for mold treatment until the water/flood remediation folks come. That product was recommended by the water remediation company and I found it on Amazon. They recommended that I not put bleach all over the basement.

Moving to the Guest Room

Meanwhile, I mentioned on Insta stories that I would re-paint our guest room to lighten it up and use it as a temporary studio. The room needs to be painted anyway. This will be a “very mini makeover” if I can pull it off. I had big intentions this week, but didn’t get much done. One night I got only 90 minutes of sleep due to getting water out of the basement, and I’m really tired.

Here’s a longer video about the guest room with explanation:

And a short video just showing a quick 360 of the room without talking:

Nice shot of the switchplate as a focal point there, huh?

So far, I got paint samples on a wall, spackled holes in the walls, taped off trim and ceiling, covered things with dropcloths, and dusted/cleaned. Unfortunately that was it.

I will try to repeat the same painting technique that I used 13 years ago when I painted the guest room walls the deep terra cotta color. It’s a mottled effect with rivers of dusty gray running through.

I love the terra cotta walls and am conflicted about painting over them. But the room is too dark. It’s time for a change. As a compromise, I decided to to keep this wall terra cotta:

And I don’t have to move that Ikea Expedit shelf much! Bonus!

This room also has my Moroccan-Indian nook in a former closet:

This nook is staying mostly as is! A few things to do:

Hang up a Moroccan pierced metal lantern found in Marrakech

Install a silk saree found on eBay as a partial curtain for the nook

Cover the aluminum closet door track

I was not planning to makeover this room, so the decor makeover will be minimal:

I’ll put things that inspire me creatively on the Ikea Expedit shelf

I’ll likely sew pillows with teal and terra cotta fabrics for the futon, to tie the colors of the room together

Fix the saree that hangs from the ceiling and drapes down the wall

I’ll bring in a few pieces from my original plan to make the creative studio:

Updates to vintage folding chairs and folding tables with paint and fabric

Stencil the rug that I wanted to use in the basement, but it might now stay in the guest room so the color plan is changing

I cannot guarantee this will get done. Sorry this sounds so non-committal. We’ve had waves of water thrown at us, literally, and I don’t know what’s coming next. All I know is more rain is forecast this coming week. But I’m trying to keep a sunny outlook!

It sounds like there were disruptions and drama for other ORC featured designers and guest participants too. Linda from Calling It Home hosts the ORC for us, and she made the unprecedented call to extend the ORC by another week, due to extreme weather events like hurricanes, wildfires and floods that are affecting a lot of bloggers and their supply chains to receive things for their rooms. So, we now have three more weeks instead of two! See what the ORC featured designers and guest participants had to say this week!